The Center of the Dresden Plate Quilt is Finished

Well here is the center of the 1930's Dresden Plate quilt! I really like the way that it is turning out so far. It's so cheerful and very different from anything that i have made so far. I usually use a lot darker colours so this is out of my comfort zone a bit. I think that it will be so nice for the summer time. I will be putting a sawtooth border on next followed by a solid white border.

This quilt will be hand quilted, in the bee that I belong to, in crosshatch. I think that it is going to look beautiful when it is finally finished.

I am a terrible blogger

Hi all! Sorry I have been MIA lately. I haven't actually been doing that much sewing lately and what I have done I have done for other people. I machine quilted two quilts for a friend of mine and made a bunch of neckerchiefs for the local Wolf Cub Troop that my son belongs to. Lots of busy work but not for me LOL!

The one quilt that I am working on is for my Quilting Bee "The Silver Thimbles." It is a 1930's reproduction Dresden Plate quilt. I am using the Mardi Michelle templates and hand appliquéing it. So far it is turning out wonderfully! My quilt goes on the frame next to be hand-quilted by the group. I love hand-quilting in a bee! There is something really wonderful about sitting around in a group and working on a project together.

I need to work on some more UFO's and get them out of the way and I need to start working on some Christmas presents. I need to make some place mats etc. And, I need to embroider some ornaments. Oh so many things to do!

Rug hooking mug mats

Hi all!
I hope that everyone is well in blogging land!

These are some rug hooked mug mats that I just finished. I drew the patterns on some burlap and hooked them with some left-over pre-cut strips. They were really fast to hook up and did actually use up some scraps. Then I steamed them and glued some cork-board to the back of them. I didn't whip the edges or anything I just turned them to the back. Whipping the edges seemed like too much work for these little coasters :) Maybe I'm just lazy!?? Anyways, on to the next project!!
I got this older rug hooking pattern from a fiber show a few weeks ago. It is an older Rittermere pattern and still had the original tag on it. I'm not sure if you can really see it but I am going to do the sun flowers in yellow, the star in orange, the background in blues and I'm not really sure about the boarder. What do you all think? I think maybe that the first boarder would look good red and the second black; but, my husband says no! Maybe a dark green would be nice actually HMMMMM! Too many decisions sometimes :)

Sorry about another rug hooking post but I do love doing it!

Hummel Emboirderies

I am currently stitching out some of the Pfaff Hummel collection of embroideries. I started these about three years ago and never got around to finishing them! I feel so bad :( Anyways, they are wonderful embroideries and very well digitized. I have 12 done her but I can't decide if I should do 16 or 20 of the embroideries to make a wall quilt.

I would also like your help on the borders. I am thinking of a thin flap of the brown around each Hummel followed by a small, maybe 2" sashing around each block. You can just see the sashing fabric in the top right hand corner. What do you think? I would really appreciate some help with this one :)

Another Sweatshirt Jacket

Hi all!

I put the finishing stitches in the binding on this jacket this morning! I am happy to finally have finished this jacket. I made it for a friend (who owns the local quilt shop) and it was started in the spring if you can believe it. I cut apart the sweatshirt and did almost all of the piecing then I put it away until this week :) I really didn't do too much sewing at all this summer and this was one of the projects that got put away. It's very embarrassing that I put it away for so long especially when it is for someone else. Oh well!

Here's the back of the jacket. Just a very simple piecing pattern. I cut 4 1/2" strips and joined them together. Then I made them all into a tube and sub-cut it into 4 1/2" tubes. I rotated the tubes until I found where I wanted the pieces and then cut them apart. Very simple but with such amazing fabric you really don't need anything fussy.

If you want to see my explanation on how I do sweatshirt jacket you can check it out in my older blog post Part 1 and Part 2.

If you have any questions at all please feel free to post them and I will do my best to answer them.

An Older baby Quilt

Hi all!

I thought that I would share this photo of an older baby quilt with you all. I made this about 2 years ago for two very dear friends of ours. The baby's father and my husband go bird watching together so I thought that a backyard birds quilt would be great for them. From top left and down we have a chickadee, a cardinal, a gold finch, a blue bird and a nuthatch. They are all completely out of proportion but hey! They still really like it! The embroideries all com from Ann the Gran website and are free designs. i really liked how they all stitched out and the little boy who recieved the quilt still absolutely loves it. When I was trying to take this picture he was trying to pick the quilt up off the floor to take it back. I think that that is one of the most rewarding reactions that you can get from a child about their quilt! When I took the quilts back last summer to repair them the three children, to whom they were given, were all a little bit disturbed that their quilts were being taken away (even for just a little while!). I know that that might sound a little odd but it means that the quilts are loved and appreciated. And, to me, that is what quilt making is all about :)

More preserving :)

Hi all!
Again it is not quilting but here is what I did today :) I put up two full bushels of Roma tomatoes! We bought the tomatoes at the Parkdale Market in Ottawa yesterday and last night I chopped one 10 pound bag of onions and and about 6 pounds of chili peppers and red peppers. Wow was that a lot of work but it made a massive difference when it came to doing all the tomatoes this morning. I started preserving this morning at about 8:30 am and i finished at about 4:00 pm. Whew! You can see a picture of the three tomatoes sauces here. On the far end is tomato sauce with onions and red peppers and chilies. Big pot closest to us is tomatoes with onions and red peppers and the small pot is just crushed tomatoes.
Finally at about 4:00 pm or so today I had all the jars water processed and labeled! Not too bad huh? I can't believe that I was able to do this many tomatoes all in the same day! My secret is the Lee Valley European Tomato Press! It is the most amazing thing and if you like to preserve tomatoes you should definitely get one. This is not an ad I'm just saying that this is something that you can not live without once you've tried it :) 8 years ago I tried to process one full bushel of tomatoes the old fashioned way and it took me three days! (Maybe I'm slow) With the Lee Valley press we did two full bushels today! All you do it take off the stem end of the tomatoes and quarter them; put them into a pot and scald them until they release their jouice and their skins start to come away from the flesh; then put them though the press. I put them through the press three times to get the most out of the pulp. The press removes all the skins and the seeds! How cool is that!! Sorry but I just love this press a lot and it has eliminated a million hours from my preserving hours!

BTW I use this for jams in exactly the same way :)

Sorry about another no quilting post but this took up a lot of my time and I wanted to share my day with you all :)

Another Baby Quilt

Hi all!

Thank you all for your responses on if it is me or my age. I really enjoyed reading all your comments and found your perspectives very interesting. I really appreciate it!


I finished and delivered another baby quilt to a new-born little baby girl yesterday. What a cutie! The Mother is also a quilter so she really appreciated the quilt. I think that just because the Mom is a quilter doesn't mean that she shouldn't get baby quilts as well LOL! This is a pattern from Ursula Reikes' book "Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC". I love her baby quilt books! She has I think 3 or 4 out and I would highly recommend them. The patterns are a good size and simple enough to whip up in no time at all. I have done this pattern several times and really like it since it showcases a nice children's print so well. This is one of the few baby quilts that I have had the opportunity to do for a little girl. I had to actually go and purchase the pink ducky fabric because I just didn't have really any baby girl fabrics! Shucks, I had to go fabric shopping LOL! It seems that most of our friends have had boys. Hmm . . . .so much for women being 52% of the population! :) Just watch now my friends will all start having little girls now :) Well, another excuse to shop for some more fabric :) Like I need an excuse :)

Is it me or is it my age??

I have to say this is a question that comes to my mind very often when I go into a new quilt shop. When I was on vacation last week I went into a quilt shop that I've never been in before. There was only one other customer at the time and they were having a great conversation then she left within a minute of me coming in. I said hello to the owner and smiled the owner just smiled at me and said "Let me know if you need anything" and proceeded to go and sit down in the back and start to sew. I looked around the shop for about 10 more minutes and took some bolts off the shelf looked at the fat quarters. I was the only person in the shop and she didn't even look at me again. I was going to purchase some fat quarters but then I thought "No way! Why should I after that service!"

At another time I was in a quilt store and I asked a question about a pattern for a Lone Star type of a quilt. The worker looked at me and handed me a pattern for an easy nine-patch quilt and said "Maybe you'd be better with this pattern." I couldn't believe it!

Now don't get me wrong I've had great service all over the place; but, I have to wonder if it is my age that's the problem. I am in my mid-thirties and I have been quilting since my late twenties. I ask this question because I have seen women of an older generation getting excellent service from the same quilt store employees. I've even been in one store several times and I keep getting the same service (I've stopped going there now). Do people assume that because I am younger that I can't be a serious quilter or that they'd be wasting their time with me? You'd think that store owners would want to foster the younger quilters not discourage them. I guess I just don't understand this one. I would love to know your view-points on this one :)

Not quilting or sewing but it's what I did yesterday!

Hi all!

I thought that I would post a photo of the work that I did yesterday! I know that it's not quilting or sewing but it took me 11 1/2 hours to make all of these so I thought that I would post it. I allowed myself 6 hours to process a whole bushel of pickling cucumbers and man was I wrong. I finished the last batch at 11:30 pm last night. I was exhausted!

From left to right: sweet sliced dills, bread and butter pickles, lemon cucumber pickles (this one is new to me) sandwich stacker dills, and kosher-style dills. I love doing preserving work in late summer. I love looking at all the different colours in the jars and knowing that I made it myself. I have done jam the past two years so this year I decided that it was pickles and tomatoes that would be put up. Do you guys do canning as well?

UFO Finish #16! for 2007

Hi all;
Sorry I haven't been blogging much :) I really haven't been sewing much and the weather has just been so wonderful right now that I want to be outside.
I have just finished my UFO #16 for the year. This one was left over units that I made while demonstrating the Eleanor Burns Triangle Square Up Ruler and flying geese ruler way back when! I made it into a baby quilt that will be on its way very soon. I am very pleased to get this one finished since there was no reason for it to be left for so long! I have got to learn my lesson and finish things soon after starting them :)

More Fabric Postcards

Hi all!

Are you all as excited about the release of Harry Potter 7 tomorrow as I am :) I will be spending the weekend with a good book and a few cups of tea I think :)

Here are my latest fabric post cards. These are for three different swaps. On the far left is "June Brides." I did the ring-bearer pillow complete with rings. In the middle is "Orange You Glad" and this one was completely open as to what we could do. On the far right is "Somethings Fishy." I did small snow globes with fish confetti in them. When you shake them the fish all move around. I got motivated and finished all these swaps early and mailed them out so that I could enjoy watching the cards come in without worrying about getting mine finished. I find that when inspiration and motivation strike you gotta go with it!

Smiles For Children

Hi all!
I have been working on getting a box of embroidered items ready to ship out to the Smiles For Children Project. People from around the world send items in to a wonderful woman who bags them up and ships them to places around the world where the children have very little. I've been working with this project for a couple of years now and just love it. We make tic-tac-toe boards, finger puppets, paper dolls, pencil toppers and sucker covers and much more :) If you have an embroidery machine and would like to volunteer, or would just like more information, you can check out the link on the right or here. You can also see one of my previous shipments here. I did more sucker covers and pencil toppers this time and I am running my x's and o's right now. I think that the kids will like them? What do you think?

Fabric Post Card Display

Hi all;

I thought that I would post a photo of the way that I have just found to display my fabric post cards. This is a cafe curtain wire rod system from Ikea :) Here is a link to it if you want to see it. It has little clips that clip onto the top of the cards and an adjustable thick wire that is strung a few inches away from the wall. I was never happy with the way that I had them tacked up onto the wall; and, when we were in Ikea the other day I was looking at this system and a light bulb went on over my head. I love "a ha!" moments. I am going to go back and get a couple more of these. I also think that they would be great for hanging small wall quilts. Sorry the picture couldn't take in the entire post card display but this is the best that I could do :)

Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt

Hi all;
We had out quilt guild final meeting for the year last night. Wow what a great meeting :) We had a potluck appetizer type of buffet and the judging to the challenge last night.

The challenge was neat. We had 32 people enter so the challenge got divided into two groups. Out of the groups of 16 we all had to submit one meter of fabric. The next month we got back 1/16 of each of the meters of fabric. We were allowed to add one neutral and one other fabric.

This is my entry into the challenge. It is a pattern called "Magic Circles' from the book Scrap Frenzy by Sally Schneider. The pattern appealed to me since I teach pilates and we use a tool called a magic circle. The rings are mostly the different fabrics but my "other" fabric is in the rings as well. The neutral is the cream background fabric. I hand quilted this quilt 1/4" outside of every seam in the background and on a diagonal in the border. I didn't place but I had a lot of fun with the challenge especially since I didn't find myself inspired by the fabric so I had to come up with something that would be usable later and that I would like.

What do you all think? :)

UFO #15 for 2007!

Hi all;
I have been off my UFO challenge for a while but I did manage to finish another one. This quilt is made up of triangle in a square units that I made when I was demonstrating the Eleanor Burns Triangle in a Square ruler. I had planned on making a much larger quilt initially but I lost interest in the project and these blocks sat in a bag for 3 or so years. I needed to make a baby quilt so this seemed like a good use for the blocks. I didn't have enough of the fabric on the border so I came up with this design to use up some more blocks too. I think that it looks pretty funky. I'm not sure if you can really see the quilting but I think that it looks pretty funky too :) I almost don't want to give this one away.

15 down and only 18 more to go :)

Fabric Dyeing Workshop

I took a fabric dyeing workshop on the weekend from a local hand dyer named Elaine Quehl. Her fabrics are wonderful and she has been dyeing for many years so I thought that a class from her would be great :) I like to take classes like this from people who have been doing it for quite a while and whose work I have seen before. I wasn't disappointed! It was a great class. I have done some dyeing before in the brights so when I took the class I decided to dye the "earthy" 12 step colour wheel. They are pictured on the top. We also did some direct application dyeing using all kinds of colours. They are on the bottom.

At the beginning of the class we were given some socks that had been scoured and prepared for dying. This was in case we spilled any dye on our feet. Well, if you can believe it no one did so we had to do some direct application dyeing on our socks to get them coloured. Pictured is my oldest son posing with the socks on. They look pretty cool :) Personally, I prefer lower socks so if I do that again I'll get some shorter socks LOL! I love the effect though.

I've had some PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric for a while now just waiting for me to get some inspiration to start dyeing again so hopefully this will give me the kick that I need :) UPDATE: I dyed 7 meters of fabric today with the dyes that were left over from class. No one else wanted to take them so I said that I would since I knew that I had everything ready to dye. I'll see how they turn out tomorrow.

Another UPDATE:
Here are the one meter cuts of fabric that I dyed from the left over dye from the class. I used the same "baggie" wet application technique for these ones and wow do I love the colours. I was really loose with the formulas and just added a bit of this and a bit of that to the baggies. I really love that blue and I love the second red :) Some of the baggies had more of the soda ash solution added to them then others since I was running out. Likewise, some of the baggies had more dye in them than others. I love the freedom of dyeing and the experimentation.


This is a two meter cut that I dyed in the direct application method of dyeing using the little bits of dye that was left after I finished the above pieces. I added a bit more water to the dye solutions to dilute it a bit more. I did a lot of scrunching of the fabric and tried not to get too much mixing. I absolutely love the way that this piece turned out :) I love the colours and the tones :) I love how vibrant the colours are. I showed this at my quilt guild (to a few of the ladies) last night and they thought that I had purchased it so I guess that is a pretty big compliment :) Too mcuh fun! I think that I need to buy more PFD fabric :)

Bella Fiori Table Runner

Hi all;
I am trying to be a better blogger :) Here is another project that my friend Sandy and I did together. We didn't want to take the whole summer off so we decided to do this Bella Fiori table runner together. It is from Creative Expressions Magazine, issue #11, and the embroideries are by Jenny Haskins. We could only see part of the table runner in the picture so we made our best guess to the rest of it. It is a really neat project with the way that the diagonal lines are done, with a 6 mm twin needle and the serpentine stitch on my Pfaff, first then the embroideries are laid down.

Here is a picture of the table runner from a bit more of a distance. We rounded the edges (you can see that a bit). The quilting is done after the backing is on but only in some of the squares. This makes the table runner lay really flat and adds a lot of interest I find.

I'll post a picture of my finished rose bouquet wall hanging once I get the binding turned to the back.

What do you think :)

Rughooking

Hi all!

Long time no blog again but this time I can say that we went to the cottage and then I had a major computer melt-down :( I tried it again yesterday and it worked again :) So here I am :)

I started a new rug hooking project. I am doing a chair seat for a 150 year old chair that I stripped and re caned. I had to weave the cane by hand and it turned out wonderful. I have some more chairs to refinish and re cane and I plan on making chair pads for all of them. It will be a big project but I think that it will be worth it in the end. This is the first one that I am working on. It is out of scraps from the pumpkin rug that I made for my son.

The only thing that I am not sure of is the reddish plaid that I have started in the border. What do you guys think?

I didn't have enough of any one background type of wool so I over-dyed and off-white wool that I salvaged from a jacket using the onion skin dying technique. The wools on the left were the first ones that I did (with LOTS of onion skins in the pot), and, I thought that they turned out too dark for the background; but, they are perfect for the insides of the flowers.

The second set worked out really well for the background of the chair pad. I wanted some mottling but not a ton so these worked out well. Now to finish the chair pad :)

This weekend

What a great weekend :) Two of our friends invited us to their friend's cottage for the weekend and what a great weekend it was :) I could get used to that :) I love the cottage life. I can just envision myself ina cottage. I could take my Featherweight and have a great time :) I didn't do any sewing at all and I relaxed on the dock. Life is good.